


After the End

by superfluouskeys



Category: Disney - All Media Types, Disney Princesses, Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, idk i'll add better tags later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 03:33:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15621633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluouskeys/pseuds/superfluouskeys
Summary: When a terrible storm drove countless people to leave not just their homes, but entire worlds behind, the Magic Kingdom was meant to be a fresh start for all, regardless of their past.  Why, then, can Aurora never seem to escape hers?





	After the End

**Author's Note:**

> This is a response to a request for another Malora story set in the same world as Dinner and a Show (I haven't moved it over from ff.net yet; link below), so if you've read that story, you will recognize the world state, though some of the rules and conditions will either be different or just more pronounced in this story. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> If you haven't read DaaS, you won't be lost--this story stands on its own--but here it is if you'd like to read it: <https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10788350/1/Dinner-and-a-Show>

"But what is it we're waiting for?" Prince Phillip threw open his arms in a silent plea.

Though she was profoundly frustrated, Aurora could not blame him.  She did not exactly know the answer, herself.  "It's a new world, Phillip," she tried.  "There's so much to do, and  to see, and to learn—"

"Is there someone else?"

"No!" Aurora turned on him, and quickly tried to swallow down the surge of irritation.  "It's just..." she sighed and turned away again.  "Shouldn't a wedding, starting a life together, take all our attention?"

"And your attention is...otherwise engaged," Phillip said.

"Yes!" said Aurora with forced brightness, ignoring the sullenness in his stance.  "Isn't yours?  All these new places, new inventions, new people—"

She shouldn't have said people.  But she didn't mean—! 

"Then you're hoping to meet someone else.  A new world," Phillip scoffed, "and suddenly I am no longer enough for you."

Aurora tried very hard to find sympathy for Phillip.  Failing that, she tried very hard to fake it.  "Phillip," she said softly.  She reached for his shoulders, but he caught her hands.  "It isn't like that at all.  Please, just..." she tried to pull away, but Phillip held fast.  She averted her eyes and took a moment to hide the irritation in her voice.  "Give me some time.  It's a new world, and I need to...adjust to it."

Phillip sighed heavily, and Aurora reclaimed her hands at last.  "As you wish, my love."

In her periphery, Aurora saw the way he moved, the certain set about his jaw when he meant to lean in to kiss her.  She was very nearly overcome by the urge to turn and run out the door, feigning ignorance, but she stayed herself.  "Thank you for understanding," she said before he kissed her, and though the flatness in her voice was clear to her, Phillip had other things on his mind.

It was a new world, meant to be a fresh start for citizens from realms beyond counting.  Why, then, did Aurora feel as though she had not escaped the dangers of her world at all?

The widespread catastrophe that had brought them here was a curious mystery.  The sky had grown dark with thick, unnatural clouds that blocked out the sun, and the storm that had ensued had proven deadly.  Some said it had come about quite suddenly, but Aurora was of the opinion that the change had been far more gradual.  She had seen the way the fruits of the trees lost their usual ripeness, the way the flowers did not quite bloom, the way sickness spread, slowly but with unnerving sureness, through her people.

But no one wanted to talk about that.  What mattered was that when the world was closing in around them, a miracle had occurred, and those well enough to travel had been granted passage to a new world where the storm could not reach them.

Aurora made a hasty exit from her quarters in the castle, which she shared with numerous royal and non-royal families from lost worlds beyond counting.  She had no plan in mind other than to be as far away from Phillip as possible, yet at the moment, this simple desire proved positively frenzying in its urgency.  She threw the door closed behind her and whirled around directly into the body of another person.

"Oh!"

"Pressing engagement, Princess?" hissed a voice that sent a wave of terror coursing through her like an electric shock.

"I'm sorry," she stammered.  "I wasn't looking—"

"Yes, that's very clear," Maleficent sneered.  "Perhaps you ought to take more care, if we're to live on top of one another."

In another world, Aurora would have cowered.  If she were feeling particularly pathetic, she might have thrown herself at Maleficent's mercy.  But this was not the old world, and Aurora had had quite enough of being berated for one day.

Aurora squared her shoulders and raised her chin to meet Maleficent's steely gaze.  "That was hardly my decision, Mistress Maleficent," she said crisply.

Maleficent's lip curled.  "Poor little princess, dissatisfied with her dream come true?"  She scoffed.  "How very predictable."

Though Aurora knew she was only referring to the castle, the words seemed to pierce far deeper.  "And why are you living here?" she fired back, with perhaps a bit more vitriol than was strictly wise.  "I'd have thought you'd be more comfortable in a cave somewhere."

The question itself was not unfounded.  The castle was enormous—so much so that Aurora scarcely saw any of its other residents if she didn't intend to, but then again, all the accommodations she had seen in the Magic Kingdom thus far seemed impossibly nice.  Housing the enormous influx of new residents had been conducted largely upon personal choice.

"Until this very moment, Princess, I have been most comfortably _left alone_."

"Well then, perhaps you'd better get back to that," said Aurora crisply.

Maleficent's smile was vicious, and Aurora began to feel the fear her anger had obscured.  "My, but you have developed a backbone," she said, with a sickly sweetness that turned Aurora's stomach.  "So secure in the laws of this new land that you think you're a match for me."  She advanced, seemed to loom over Aurora and lean in even though her posture had not changed. 

"Tread carefully, Princess," she said.  "And I mean that in every sense of the phrase."

When the world was closing in around them, a miracle had occurred, and all those who were well enough to travel had been granted passage to a new world where the storm could not reach them.  The leaders of the Magic Kingdom wished to be clear that their land was a safe haven for all, regardless of who they were, from whence they hailed, or even their past misdeeds.

Aurora's parents, the King and Queen, had not been well enough to travel.  She had been forced to leave them behind, lying listless in their sickbeds as the storm closed in around them.  Aurora's parents had been left behind, and Maleficent was here, alive and well.  Maleficent, who had cursed Aurora to die when she was an infant.  Maleficent, who might very well have caused the widespread destruction that had preceded the storm.

Maleficent was here, and Maleficent must by law be treated with fairness and respect.

Aurora braced herself momentarily against the castle wall, squeezed her eyes closed and tried to steady her breathing.  She shouldn't have spoken to Maleficent that way, not because she cared, but because Maleficent was the sort of person who didn't need the full extent of her magical power to cause trouble.  Magic was controlled in this land, particularly the sort Maleficent wielded, but just like every other new resident of a "certain reputation", Maleficent was otherwise under no special observation.

This was a new world, meant to be a fresh start.  But why should Maleficent be permitted to escape her past, while Aurora could not?

Aurora found considerable solace in the sound of birdsong, and she followed it as far into the woods as a person could go in this realm.  There were different birds here, bright and colourful, who sang songs she'd never heard before.  The forest around her felt a bit affected—the trees were spaced too evenly and the grass was too uniform—but she reminded herself that her goal had been to escape the confines of her home, and this was as good a place as any to find a moment's peace.

Her moment was short-lived.

"Hello there," she was saying to one of the colourful birds she had managed to coax closer to her, then—

"Oh!  Hello!" said a man's voice.

"Oh!" Aurora looked up.  The bird fluttered away.

"I wasn't expecting to see anyone out here," said the man.  He had dark hair and wore fine clothes.  Royalty or nobility, probably, from another land.  He seemed to remember himself suddenly, and bowed.  "Prince William," he said, "at your service."

Aurora afforded him a shadow of a smile.  "Couldn't we skip the formalities?"

Prince William's polite smile brightened immensely.  "I'd like that very much," he said.

Aurora wasn't certain why she felt even more awkward than before.

Still, talking to him was pleasant—certainly much more pleasant than any of the conversations Aurora had fielded in recent memory—and together, they coaxed another, braver bird close enough to touch, and they laughed when the bird hopped into Aurora's outstretched hand and began to sing its approval loudly to the rest of the forest.

"My, but the time has passed quickly!" said William.  "I'm meeting some friends for supper—won't you join us?"

"Oh, I wouldn't want to impose—"

"Nonsense!  Everyone will love you!"

"Well," Aurora hedged, because there was something about William that made her just the slightest bit uncomfortable, but the prospect of meeting new people did sound most appealing.  "All right!" she agrees at last, and accepted the hand he offered to help her to her feet.

Aurora had walked past the little dinner theater called the House of Mouse at least a dozen times by now, but she had never gone in.  Phillip had been, for he had made friends who had told him that the House of Mouse had become something of a gathering spot for those not born in the Magic Kingdom.  Truthfully, she was eager to see what it was like, but she did not want to go alone, and her fairy aunties didn't like to go out much, and as of late, Phillip had not proven very pleasant company.

The mixture of people alone was truly bizarre.  Aurora felt she recognized half of them from wild tales of their heroism or of their misdeeds, and in thinking this, it occurred to her that perhaps there were people who recognized her in this way, as well.

William's table of friends turned out to be a prime example.  He introduced her first to his cousin, Prince Henry, and his wife, Ella, who asked to be called Cindy.  Aurora quickly realized that this was a shortening of the famous Cinderella, but did her best to stay her own curiosity.  Cindy, in turn, introduced her friends, Snow and Rapunzel, both of whom Aurora needed no context to recognize.

And it was fun, for a moment.  Cindy asked how she was adjusting to the new world, and Rapunzel told a funny story about learning to use a hair dryer, and Aurora began to feel the stresses of the morning, even of the past few weeks, falling away.  It was a new world, a fresh start, and there was so much to do and see and learn—

"Aurora?"

Aurora felt a pang of guilt at the sound of Phillip's voice, and she resented the feeling immediately.  She looked up with as neutral an expression as she could manage.  "Oh, hello, Phillip, I didn't know you'd be here."

"Clearly you didn't," said Phillip coldly.

Aurora tried to force brightness into her voice.  "Won't you come and meet—"

Phillip cut her off.  "I knew you were lying to me."

"What?"

"But this is absurd!" Phillip continued.  "Do you mean to embarrass me, or am I to believe you truly have no idea what you're doing?"

Aurora stood from the table, meaning to placate, determined to remain calm.  "Phillip, I don't know what you're talking about."

"You could at least have the courtesy not to take your dates to the most popular place in town," said Phillip.  "Or didn't you know?"

Aurora groaned.  "Please, not this again!"

Phillip scoffed.  "Then this isn't a date?"

"No!"

"No?" William looked up, surprised.

Aurora turned on him.  "No!  I just wanted to—to—!"

"To what, Aurora?" Phillip pressed derisively.

"Wait, oh my god, is this your boyfriend?"  William was standing now.

"Fiance!" Phillip cried quite suddenly, far too loud, and it attracted undue attention from the crowded restaurant.

"Why didn't you tell me?" William demanded.

"Uh, folks?" came a high-pitched voice from below them.  "Sorry to interrupt, but the performance is about to begin..."

"Of course," said Phillip, grabbing Aurora rather forcefully by the wrist.  "We were just leaving."

"Let me go!" Aurora rent her wrist free and ran around the nearest corner, hoping for a bathroom or a back exit and finding instead Maleficent, sitting alone and out of sight at a small table, across from an empty chair.  Aurora very nearly burst into tears for the sheer unfairness of her ill fortune.

"Look," said Aurora, "can I just—can I please just sit here for a few minutes?"

Maleficent regarded her with narrowed eyes.  "You can," she said thoughtfully.  "The question is whether you should."

"Please, I promise I won't bother you, I just found out I was accidentally on a date and now Phillip is here and he's mad and William is mad and they're both yelling at me and everyone is terrified of you and if I'm here maybe they won't—"  Aurora felt treacherous tears welling in her eyes, but she would not cry in front of Maleficent, she would not!

"It escapes me why you think this is any of my—"

"Why, Mistress Maleficent!  I had a feeling I might find you here."

Aurora turned to locate the source of the voice, and she very nearly fainted dead away from sheer terror.  She knew this man, knew his dark hair and his weird moustache and the hook where his hand should be.  And perhaps Aurora was already tremendously out of place, but Maleficent was another matter—Maleficent was an evil she knew, while this man was an evil she did not.

"A shame," the man continued, gesticulating grandly with his hooked hand, "that such a rare beauty feels she must hide herself away in a corner."

"Did it occur to you," said Maleficent drily, "that I might sit here because I do not wish to be disturbed?"

'Quite right," said the man.  "We have so much in common, you and I—"

"And as you can see, my dinner companion for the evening has just arrived," said Maleficent, gesturing to Aurora.  'I'm afraid three is, as they say, a crowd."

"Your—" the terrifying man turned his attention to Aurora, comically wide-eyed with bewilderment.

”I suggest you save yourself a tremendous embarrassment by leaving now," Maleficent continued airily, "whilst whatever dignity you possess remains intact."

The man began to stammer.  Aurora was too stunned to speak.  She sat.


End file.
